The purpose of this blog is to update you on the happenings of Sister Andelin as she serves the people of Nevada in the Las Vegas West Mission as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Monday, May 12, 2014

April 7: Another Odd Week

Alrighty. This email is a sequel to last weeks.

And before I begin, I really hope that no one got the impression from last week's letter that I was bragging about our song. That was not the intent-- I was just really excited!

Anyhew, we got a phone call from the APs again this week. I chatted with one of my favorite missionaries-- Elder Crapo (remember the picture from a couple of weeks ago??)-- and he invited us to perform our musical number this upcoming Sunday- the 13th-- for the first mission-wide musical fireside.

[The past musical firesides have kind of been the pilot firesides for just our stake. But because of the success of the past 2, they have decided to adopt this idea as a whole mission. Now the firesides will be for the 10 or so stakes on this side of the valley. ]

GAH.

That will be sooo many more people there. Yay---now I get to relive the fun anxiety ALL OVER AGAIN!!!

Oh and Mumma-- can you send me a new camera, por favor? That can be my birthday present :)

Ok. So I also want to update yall on some things that happened this past week and the week before. (Because I ran out of time, last time)

So last week we went to the Palmhurst ward with Elizabeth. We wanted her to try the YSA ward, just in case she would like that better, but she said she would only go if we went with her. So of course, we went with her. It was fast and testimony meeting. We sit down, and I nudge her and say, "Ok. It's your turn!" She turned to me and laughed, while saying, "Heck no!"

Minutes later, she stood up and went to the pulpit.

Shocked, Sister Larsen and I looked at each other and shrugged, then turned to look at Elizabeth.

This is approximately what she said.

"Hi everyone. My name is Elizabeth and I'm a ....." She looks down at us and we whisper,

"Investigator".

She continues, "Investigator! Thanks. Yea so I'm an investigator. I've been meeting with the sisters for the past few months. And I just wanted to bear my testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it has changed my life. I love it! It is so delicious! But before I started meeting with the sisters, my life was really dull and had no meaning. Once they started teaching me and gave me a Book of Mormon, that all changed. I really struggled to know when the spirit was speaking to me and if I was feeling it. At one of our lessons, Sister Andelin asked me,

"Well how do you feel about the Book of Mormon?" And I said, "I love it!" She then said, "That's the spirit!"

And then it dawned on me. It is also changing my daughter's life as well.I have a four year old daughter, Aaralyn, and the other day I was taking her to gymnastics. She asked me, "Mommy, am I like Jesus?" I was thrown off guard by the question and said, "Yea. You are." And then she said, "Good. Because I have been trying so hard every day!" Oh and I'm getting baptized on the 19th! In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

It was so cool! When she sat back down, I turned to her and asked her why she got up. She started laughing and said, "I don't know! I just had this feeling to get up and then all of a sudden, my hand was on Sister Larsen's leg, and I was propping myself up. Next thing I knew, I was walking to the pulpit!"

Gah. I love this girl. Like so much. She has changed my life. And her little daughter, Aaralyn, is amazing. She is the cutest little girl- see picture for confirmation.

Also, when we watched Women's Conference the other day, it was super good. But Mumma, it made me miss you. Especially when those little girls were holding their mommy's hands. And I thought about you and wanted to hold your hand and give you the biggest hug.

Ok. Now on to some funny/weird stories.

I went on two exchanges this week.

I've come to understand that being an STL, really is a sacred calling. A lot of what you do for the sisters is to help build them up and inspire them. I've spent many an exchange crying with the sisters as they release the stress/worry/concern that has built up in them over the past weeks.

I've also come to realize that about 95% of the exchanges that I go on, something crazy happens. True to this statistic, the 2 I went on this past week were crazy.

I had to go with one sister to Urgent Care. And they almost sent us to the hospital. But we avoided that and just went to a normal doctor instead. As we were in Urgent Care though, the doctor said he was going to give her a shot. The nurse came back in with a rather long needle. I had a pretty good idea where this shot was gonna go, but the poor sister did not. I started laughing and she looked at me confused. Then she asked, "Wait. If I may ask...where is this shot going?" The nurse, who didn't speak too much English, said, "The bum." It was so. darn. funny. I was trying to restrain my laughter as I covered my eyes, so as to allow some privacy. As soon as the nurse left, the sister jumped up with a horrified expression on her face and mouthed, "THAT HURT SO BAD!!!!" Then we both burst out laughing.

On my other exchange, I got to be an Hermana misionera for 5 hours. I was so excited. They are the first 2 Spanish sister missionaries, but one of them was in the hospital getting her gall bladder removed, so I had the privilege of going out with the other Hermana. We had 2 lessons- one in English and the other in Spanglish. (The sister I went out with, has been an English sister for the past 8 months and doesn't know Spanish too well) It was cool though, because I got the gift of tongues for about 2 seconds and I formulated a couple of sentences in Spanish.

Later on, we had to call our President to verify something and when he picked up I said, "Hi! This is Hermana Andelin!" He was a little confused and then I had to explain :)

It was so cool though, because while we were at the hospital, we got to talk to the nurse for about 35 minutes and she was pretty interested in the church! So we got her information and passed it along.

We have a couple more potential investigators that we'll be meeting with in the next few weeks. We're pretty excited about that :)

Conference was great. We got to watch it with 2 investigators!

Welp.

I love you all! Thanks for your love and support!

I love Jesus Christ!

Love,

Sister Andelin

P.S. **Another story.

When I was on one of the exchanges, we got to break glass plates and cups on the driveway!! It was so epic!!!